I found this on my google documents thing. The TOK Essay written by me during the IB Program. It could be fun to read and some help to current IB students.

Lagemaat mentions in his book that “One of the ways in which dogs may have an easier time of it than we do is that they never have to worry about the ethics”¹ Even though dealing with the ethics sometimes gives us some hard times, ethics is probably the only area of knowledge which can clearly explain about the moral decisions of us. In some cases, emotion appears to be neglected. For example, on an American television series called 24, which is basically a chain of events around a Federal Agent, Jack, there has been a situation where they had two people about the die in a room while there was only one doctor to keep one of them alive. One of those who are about to die was his colleague who had once saved Jack’s life before and the other person was “one of those bad boys” but he had some information that the Federals need. In this situation, Jack forced the doctor to operate “the bad boy” in order to get information that they need. Similarly to this, emotions are to be forgotten in medical ethics, as well. This could explain why doctors should avoid treating his friends and family.

In the example above, Jack is simply reasoning the situation and decides without using emotion. It may sound horrible but, according to Jack, no matter what is the relation between his colleague, the interests of the state’s sake is much important then the individuals, but does it justify his decision? If the reason was supported by tests that we can conduct and by the information and knowledge that he has that proves his action to be verifiable, then his decision is justified.

In that case, reason is used to help to solve out the problem that he had with maximizing the benefit it would cause the others –in this case, the whole nation- and minimize the affliction it would bring. However, reason is not enough to solve a moral issue. If we take an example of a guilty family member, you would normally report such a person to the police because your reasoning says that this is the true thing to do. However, you are aware of the fines that he is about the get and you also know the conditions of the prisons. In such cases, our emotion starts to work and we would at least question ourselves “Do I really want to report him?” When we are making such a decision, even though our emotions start to take part, we still reason the conditions and facts to get a conclusion.

If we look over the both examples above, we can argue that the context is the major –maybe the most important- factor in justifying moral decisions. Before justifying moral decisions, we need to know the basis of the circumstances. In addition to this, looking through some similar previous circumstances can also be needed. Since, each society and culture has their own values, beliefs and traditions, things can be morally right in one society and may not be in another.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are an extremely strict Christian religious society spread all over the world. Many Jehovah’s Witnesses sincerely believe that it is a gross sin to accept a blood transfusion, since the Bible states that we must abstain from blood. Since, they are very strict about their rules many of those people accepts to die but blood transfusion to their body. On the other hand, in many countries, it is counted as a murder to let people to die in the hospitals or not to aid to a dying patient. How can we take this moral decision then? On one hand there is the belief of a person which orders to die, on the other hand it is murder to permit him to pass out.

As another example, we can argue about the honour killings. In some Middle Eastern cultures and societies, killing women because of having sex with a man without marriage, sometimes even they have been raped is acceptable. In addition to this they usually kill the men, as well, in order to “clean their honour”. These crimes are comprehended as necessary and understandable because of the idea of family’s honour is absolutely more important. From the civilized point of view this is obscene and unacceptable.

We can justify our statements in both examples by evaluating on the facts and logic reasoning: Not to help a person who is about to die is a murder. Murder is wrong. Therefore, letting a person to die is wrong as well. Furthermore, killing a person is a murder. Murder is wrong. So, it is wrong to kill a person whatever the reason is. Nevertheless, in the emotions of the people who are the subjects of these examples are not parts of this reasoning. As I had argued for them not the reasoning but what their emotions said is true.

Except for some specific examples like the one with the Federal Agent or one about the medical ethics, we cannot base our moral decisions only on reason or only on emotion. If we do not have some psychological problems, we simply cannot express a kind of emotion without any reason. We cheer deliriously by having a lot of joy because our team just won the Championship or we get nervous because we got late to school due to the bus drivers’ strike. We can justify why we feel those emotions by using reason, as well. We cannot apply reason to justify a moral decision without the emotional feelings like “this is right” or “this is wrong”.

I believe that it is impossible for me to choose only one of reason or emotion when I am justifying some moral issues. For example, even though I feel like to donate my entire weekly to an foundation for the children in Africa who are suffering form hunger, the logical reason that I have made tells me to do it only with a piece of my weekly in order to survive rest of the week. Thus, I could have made a decision emotionally right and reasonable. Since the moral decisions are completely dependent on the context, justification of them can sometimes be difficult.

Reason and emotion are two facts which are strongly tied up to each other when we are justifying the moral decisions. Reason is our parts which works exactly like a computer, lists the facts and circumstances and finds out the best thing to do. It is also the thing that we use when we need to find out where we made the mistake or when we would like to improve ourselves on decisions. As Lagemaat mentions in his example about the dogs, emotions is what makes us different than the other creatures. Finally, if a concrete answer is asked for the question “Are reason and the emotion equally necessary in justifying the moral decisions?”, I would say that even though reason and emotion both plays a huge role on our moral decisions, reason is more important factor on these kinds of justifications, however, emotion is our instinctive initiative which filters our decisions made by reasoning and keeps us different than the dogs or robots.

(Word count: 1 204)

1 Richard van de Lagemaat, Theory of Knowledge for IB Diploma (p.364)